Rights, Responsibility, and in Spirit of Our Constitution: Freedom of Speech vs. Social Media
Since the silencing of President Trump and the removal of Parler, the discussion around the first amendment and big tech has been a large conversion.
Among other things, the first amendment forbids the government from hindering our speech. It also gives us the freedom to associate with whomever we please. For these reasons, I think we would be hard-pressed to find a governmental solution to the problems with big tech without infringing on the Constitution.
Each social media platform has its own terms of service. Agreeing to these terms allows the platform to moderate your content as it sees fit. Fact-checking and content removal are the two primary ways in which this happens. In extreme cases, the offender can be removed from the platform entirely. While each company is within its rights to do so, one must consider the consequences of content moderation.
Moderation that is perceived to be applied unevenly leads to the creation of ideologically pure alternative platforms. This further isolates people into echo chambers and limits exposure to new ideas. This is detrimental to our general understanding of the world and the consequences can prove dire. As we have learned from Parler, these alternate platforms can harbor even the most extreme views that can go unchecked. Because of this, Parler ended up losing its underlying architecture, formerly provided by Amazon. Because of free-market forces, Parler is likely to be back online as they have signed contracts with Epik and DDOS-Guard, whose terms of service are more favorable to their mission. Even after returning online, the battle with big tech isn’t over for Parler. I foresee anti-trust battles against Apple and Google over the accessibility of Parler via their application stores. This will likely result in Apple and Google being forced to allow access to 3rd party application markets. I dare to say that the majority of the arguments of free speech against big tech are either already covered by the free market or nearly covered pending future litigation with precedence in Parler’s favor.
Other problems with the terms of service and the methods in which moderation occurs are that nobody is safe. Social media platforms are rarely consistent with or transparent about their moderation. Ideas that are safe one day may be in jeopardy the next. And not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to afford to create platforms of their own. This leads to the realization that corporate censorship disproportionately affects low class and impoverished citizens.
In my experience, the majority of the censorship cases haven’t been based solely on the political leaning of the argument but more on how the argument was being presented. Invalid arguments, false premises, and logical fallacies lead to moderation. To understand my use of the term “invalid argument”, I will provide the following example.
” Every time there is someone in the front yard, Spot barks. Spot is barking, so someone must be in the front yard.”
This is an example of an invalid argument. The first premise of this argument excludes the possibility of other reasons why Spot could be barking. Of course, this specific argument might only lead to discussion in the comments section. However, you could imagine that with a more sensitive topic, with the addition of intentional falsehoods, the moderators might wish to intervene by adding a fact check. Arguments that contain ad hominem attacks, speech that isn’t considered protected by the first amendment, or speech that goes against certain moral foundations may be enough for an argument to be removed. In many cases simply changing the way in which one communicates is enough to avoid moderation and still foster meaningful discussion.
Like many of our rights, our freedom of speech has limitations. By now we should all be aware of the limits of our freedom of speech. For this reason, I’m not going to discuss those limits here. However, I will argue that we also have a responsibility to our nation to use our freedom in good faith. I believe we have epistemic responsibility. To put it simply, epistemic responsibility is the idea that it is wrong to hold a belief with insufficient evidence. The topic of how we can properly analyze evidence to determine if it justifies a belief is another lengthy conversation on its own.
One might say they are entitled to believe however they want providing it doesn’t harm anyone else. This might be true with an opinion, such as your favorite ice cream. Beliefs we hold, even ones not spoken publicly, still can influence how we treat others or who we support. In essence, they can still harm at some level. Many philosophers agree that there isn’t such thing as a personally held belief. We tend to act on and openly discuss our beliefs. Additionally, many of us tend to put a lot of emphasis on testimonial evidence, the evidence obtained through the communication of others. Thus, one person’s unexplored belief can blindly be adopted by others. The quote often attributed to Mark Twain, although unproven, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” points to a key reason why platforms moderate aggressively. Often, a disproven claim can live on even after it has been moderated. This is why I think it is important for us to speak with honesty and in search of the truth of the matter.
The idea of speaking the truth has been with us for ages, but we tend to allow our moral foundations or opinions of character to justify a lie, or at the least not search for the truth. The claim of Trump holding a bible upside down after clearing Lafayette Square is a good example. Even though this claim lacks truth, it was easy for people to quickly take the claim on blind faith in the form of testimonial evidence after seeing that his past actions conflict with their moral foundations. I’ve always been puzzled by those who feel they need to make up lies when there is plenty of warranted criticisms available.
As I ponder the ideas of truthfulness and good faith communication, the ninth commandment comes to mind, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”. Regardless of your faith, the wisdom in these words maintains important relevance to our digital age. In my mind, sharing information or a belief without trying to discover as much truth as possible in itself is dishonest.
Even though the first amendment is intended for our protection from the government, we all benefit by maintaining the spirit of the constitution in our daily lives. For us to learn from each other we must allow ourselves and others to be wrong. We should no longer demonize those who hold different beliefs and we should begin giving praise to those who change their minds with new evidence.
